Stealth Gear Photographers Gloves - Medium

I have just returned from a photography trip on the coldest week end of the year. Fortunately I purchased some 'Stealth Gear' gloves before going. Nothing would have coped with the cold this week end but these certainly did better than those my colleagues were wearing. The tip of my finger exposed for the shutter was quite num,b making me realise what the rest of mu hands would have been like without them.

Finally, those clever bods at Stealth Gear have answered a long standing problem of mine, how to keep my hands warm and dry but still able to operate my camera. I suffer quite badly from cold, numb hands in cold months, making keeping them warm while still maintaining enough finger dexterity to operate camera controls pretty tricky. So far the best solutuion I'd managed to come up with was lightweight snowboarding gloves (warm but just about thin enough to be able to operate a shutter) with fingerless woven gloves over the top, which did the job, but wasn't ideal There have been gloves out for a while with a similar idea of having the finger and thumb with a flip off cover to keep them warm when not in use but available with maximum dexterity when needed, but all the ones I have ever seen have either been fingerless gloves with a mitten like cover, or have been fleecy, which may be warm, but is not particularly wind or water proof. Equally I've just never been 100% convinced about something that flips off on the basis that it could snag and come off when you don't want it too or worse pull off by virtue of not beign fully attached Stealth Gear's solution, rather than having something that flips off the finger and thumb, is to have a small 'porthole' in the the middle of stretchy mterial (it looks like neoprene but I'm not sure) over the finger and thumb that you can push through to access your camera, then simply retract again once you're done, arguably this does mean that there's always a hole that the wind could whistle through, but no more so than a seam on a flip off finger cover and also has the benefit that you can push through as much or as little as you want of the tip of your finger/thumb to access the controls you want, so gives you more control over how much you expose yourself to the elements Naturally the gloves are made from the same waterproof, breathable material as the rest of Stealth Gear's range of clothing, so they're highly rudable and resistant to the elements, they are not excessively thick and have a grip pattern on the palm to make sure you don't lose grip of your camera. They have a warm lining, but only time will tell whether they will prove warm enough alone to keep my hands from going numb in the middle of winter, I have proved however, that while a good fit, there's enough room in them for me to fit a pair of fingerless woven gloves on underneath them if need be, so that shuld solve the problem if need be.My only gripe is regarding the wrist strap on the gloves. For a start it feels a bit short, I ony have relatively thin wrists but on my hands, the strap is quite near the end of it's available length. It also has no elasticity (the main cuff of the gloves does) so once secured, taking the gloves off again does require the wrist strap to be undone every time, something I find I don't normally have to do with other gloves. Finally there is a bit of a design flaw in that the hook side of the velcro is facing upwards, so unless you have thin enough wrists to get the strap to fully cover it, some will be exposed so could catch on things, as my pair keep doing on the inside of my jacket pocket. This observation is something I have fed back to Stealth Gear and hope they will improve on for future development.That small gripe aside, this really is a fantastic pair of gloves and is the best solution I've yet seen for the all weather photographer who wants warm hands and quick and easy access to their camera controls